Vietnam rejects Human Rights Watch's ‘wrongful remarks’

Check out the following article. The Foreign Minister of Vietnam reminds me of the Foreign Minister of Iraq (remember the guy spinning to the world that Iraq was winning the war, and all we saw on TV were images of U.S. tanks rolling through Iraq and Saddam Hussein's bronze statue being toppled). You judge for for yourself.....

Vietnam Thursday rejected “fabricated information” from the Human Rights Watch, saying there are no political crackdowns in Vietnam.

The Human Rights Watch, in a press release this month, accused Vietnam of launching the so-called “crackdowns on dissidents.”

The remarks “fail to reflect the real situation in Vietnam, Foreign Ministry Spokesman Le Dzung told a news conference.

Dzung said Vietnam respected the rights to freedom and democracy of all citizens, but “never accepts the abuses of those rights to carry out activities that violate Vietnamese laws.”
He said Vietnamese relevant agencies recently started legal proceedings against people who committed illegal acts to provoke security and to sabotage Vietnam.

“These proceedings comply with the laws. These are normal and necessary measures to ensure national security and the community's common interest," he said.

"In Vietnam, there are no political crackdowns, no one is arrested for his or her political viewpoint, only those who violate the law will be dealt with in compliance with Vietnamese laws," Dzung stressed.
When asked about Vietnam's reactions to information on the activities of Thich Huyen Quang and Thich Quang Do, Dzung said they were leading their life and practicing religion as usual, they are by no means under house detention or probation."

Quang and Do were members of the Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam, which came into being in January 1964 in Saigon.

“Since 1981, the ‘Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam’ and other Buddhist congregations in Vietnam have unified into the "Vietnam Buddhist Sangha". Now the "Vietnam Buddhist Sangha" is the sole existing organisation of Vietnamese Buddhists," Dzung said.